Overall latest MTA

0.814

Change since 2018

0.012

Number of species and habitats

2051

Methodology

Expansions of conservation areas such as the Natura 2000 network should be done in a way that improves not only area coverage but also representation (Visconti et al. 2019). The MTA indicator is one way of assessing this using information of species distributions covered by conservation areas.
The calculation of the MTA indicator (defined by Jantke et al. (2019) ) used EEA species and habitat reporting data and Natura 2000 information. For each 10 x 10 km grid id in the EEA Reference grid, we estimated the cumulative coverage of Natura 2000 sites per time frame, which we identified from the date SPAs, SCIs or SACs were designated or first added to the database. We then summarized per species or habitat the total distribution as well as the coverage of Natura 2000 sites within their distribution. See also the Section 2 section for a more detailed methodology breakdown.
The current calculation of the MTA is feasible every 6 years and can also be further refined to account for land-cover and land-use change, for example using data from the Corine Accounting layer. Furthermore, for comparability data on EEA reporting is used, although more higher resolved species distribution data (such as those produced by the NaturaConnect project) are slowly becoming available.

Data

As data sources we relied for this demonstration on the officially used Article 12 (‘Birds directive’) and Article 17 (‘Habitats directive’) reporting data. Sensitive species were also included in those calculations.

As conservation areas we relied on the Natura2000 geopackage (last updated in April 2024).

Targets were calculated as log-linear targets (following (Rodrigues et al. 2004)) with a lower bound to 20% and upper bound to 90%. Different target formulations are feasible, for example those minimizing species-extinction risk (following (Jung et al. 2021)) and should ideally be based on a scientifically sound process at EU Member state level that takes into account ecological features and conservation needs.

References
Jantke K, Kuempel CD, McGowan J, et al (2019) Metrics for evaluating representation target achievement in protected area networks. Diversity and Distributions 25:170–175. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12853
Jung M, Arnell A, Lamo X de, et al (2021) Areas of global importance for conserving terrestrial biodiversity, carbon and water. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5:1499–1509. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01528-7
Rodrigues ASL, Akçakaya HR, Andelman SJ, et al (2004) Global gap analysis: Priority regions for expanding the global protected-area network. BioScience 54:1092. https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054[1092:GGAPRF]2.0.CO;2
Visconti P, Butchart SHM, Brooks TM, et al (2019) Protected area targets post-2020. Science 364:eaav6886. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav6886

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Methodology


NaturaConnect receives funding under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101060429.

To find out more about our project, please visit our homepage.


The MTA indicator calculation and the creation of this dashboard has been led by Martin Jung (IIASA) as part of the WP7 of the NaturaConnect project. The information here is provided free of charge and the project takes no responsibility for errors or misuse.